Millions of children's toys, cribs, playpens and other children's products are sold in the market place each year. Parents who purchase these items trust that they have been exhaustively tested to meet rigorous safety standards. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. Companies who manufacture defective toys, cribs, and playpens need to be held to the highest standards of quality and safety because the end users of those products are our most vulnerable population: children.

When children are injured as a result of defective toys or defective playpens their injuries often lead to a product liability claim. Successful product liability cases not only compensate injured victims but serve as a balance that requires the manufacturer of the defective product to fully realize the costs that their defective product has placed on society. Their negligently produced products can lead to the severe injury or death of children.

The overarching danger of defective toys is that they do not discriminate: all children are potential victims. However, certain age groups face heightened threats from particular types of products. Defective playpens or defective cribs have been a serious concern for infants. Toys that contain choking hazards are potentially harmful to toddlers while older kids generally have been in danger from motorized toys.

Defects in a toy or playpen can come about from a number of different, and often hidden, causes. Some toys contain lead paint. Others can be dissembled or taken apart by children unbeknownst to parents. Still other toys are of a size that can cause injury to children who simply use them. Each particular defect requires experienced and knowledgeable attorneys to uncover their source, which could include flaws in the design, construction with dangerous materials like lead and cadmium, or a failure to warn or supervise.

In some cases a defective toy or defective playpen will lead to a product recall. Unfortunately, this happens frequently. The Consumer Product Safety Commission's (CPSC) website is a good resource for information about current product recalls. The CPSC also maintains statistics that provide a look into the defective toy and defective playpen threat.

• In 2008, there were an estimated 235,300 toy-related injuries treated in U.S. hospital emergency departments. The annual average of estimated toy-related injuries from 2006-2008 is 229,600
• Of the 235,300 estimated toy-related injuries treated in emergency rooms across the country, an estimated 172,700 (or 73%) occurred to children less than 15 years of age, while an estimated 82,300 (35%) were to children younger than 5 years of age.

Source: www.cpsc.gov

Clifford Law Offices has knowledgeable defective toy, defective crib and defective playpen attorneys who are experienced in product liability cases. In one case, Clifford Law Offices represented Sharon Henry, the mother of a child injured by a Magnetix toy set when he swallowed the pill-sized magnets. The powerful magnets connected together in his intestines and perforated his bowel. Doctors told Henry that if she had waited 24 more hours her son would have died. Further reading on the importance of child-safety in toy manufacturing is available here in an article written by Robert A. Clifford titled, Toy Industry Needs to Stop Playing Around with Child Safety. The defective product lawyers from Clifford Law Offices have a number of successes in this complex area of litigation. Please call the defective toy attorneys in Chicago at Clifford Law Offices.